You really can't say enough good things about this film --Looks even better on a really big screen, so if you know anyone with video projection capabilities, you should show this one on the back of a garage one night for the neighborhood kids --Didn't Bradbury get actual screen credit for this? So, not really a steal? . . .peter johnson/denny crane

What happens when movie producers see a monster movie script and decide there is entirely to much monster in the story?.Well you get The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms!.It could of been so much better,but for some reason,Jack Ditz and Hal Chester (our producers),said "Way to much Monster",what did they want?,you know he was originally to be called Godzilla,but at the last minute Warner Bros. decided this title would be a better eye catcher,(good thing,for a three years later that name would be given to one of the most famous monsters in history!,though I still like Gamera better,and landed Raymond Burr the role as the country's most famous defense attorney in TV history,up to the time of Matlock,today they are both the most famous attorneys on TV).Anyway,yet another A-bomb test unleashes the Beast,Paul Christan(Tom Nesbit) is the only one who survives the first encounter and tries to convince everyone else as to what he has seen.You know no one believes him,until he meets Dr.Elsion and Miss Lee Hunter,who's played,believe it or not, by non other than Gracie Allen!!,the first straight role she's ever had!.Oh I'm sorry,that's not our queen of confusion,it's really Paula Raymond,who just happens to look like a young Gracie Allen.Meantime the beast goes on the rampage,needing to eat after all those thousands of years,he eats the following,Icebergs,Canadian fishing boats,with nice Canadian Fishermen morsels,Lighthouses,Divingbells,and finally he comes to New York City!.Where he's amazed by the well paved road to walk on,stopping only to eat cars and policemen!,with special guest screamer Aunt Bea!,and crashing through The Jeffersons deluxe east side apartment!,now where else are you going to find a monster movie like this one?.He also carries a prehistoric disease,and so at Conny Island while the monster eats his last meal,(that rollercoaster),Tom gives a grenade rifle to non other than Mr.Ugly,Lee Van Clef himself,(I know he was the bad one in the Clint Eastwood picture,but in another western movie he's referred to as Mr.Ugly,unfortunately I don't remember the name of that movie right now).Lee shoots the radioactive isotope into the monster and he screams out in horrible pain and dies.Loosely based on a Ray Bradbury story in the Saturday Evening Post called The Fog Horn,in which a sea monster hears the foghorn,thinking it's another monster,he rushes to meet it,needless to say when he sees it's a lighthouse,he dies of a broken heart.